Preparing for high school and college

[essnce629]

I haven't read all the comments thoroughly yet, but these are my thoughts as of today. DS1 is a current high school senior who just went through the college application process and has 5 acceptances so far and is waiting on 4 more.

1. If you don't qualify for need based aid (which I'm assuming the majority on this board do not based on demographics) then the ONLY way to bring down the price of a school is through "merit aid" which are basically coupons (although they call them scholarships) given directly by the school discounting tuition based solely on your kid's GPA and test scores. AND Ivy league and the most selective schools DON'T give out merit aid, only need based aid, so if you don't qualify for need based aid you will be expected to pay full price which is usually $70k plus a year for tuition, room and board, fees, etc at these schools. Luckily I knew this in advance by running the Net Price Calculator on dozens of schools ahead of time. In order to get the maximum merit aid your student needs to apply to schools a tier or 2 or 3 below the most selective schools, where they are in the top 25% or more when it comes to GPA and test scores. This means not applying to any "reach" schools. Many small private schools offer lots of merit aid, while most public schools do not since their price is already lower and they have no problem filling seats. Our goal for DS1 has always been for him to go to a small liberal arts college for the price of a UC school. So far we're in a good position and we still plan to appeal for more merit aid at a later date.

2. There's lots of resources out there to become knowledgeable on the college admissions process. I've learned so much from both the private FB groups Grown and Flown Parents and Paying For College 101. For books, my favorites have been Colleges that Change Lives by Loren Pope and Who Gets In and Why by Jeffrey Selingo. For podcasts my favorite is Jeffrey Selingo's Future U.

3. Let your kids explore. My DS1 rotated through so many extracurriculars and activities till he finally settled down on things he was passionate about. The extracurriculars and academic subjects he was interested in during middle school are completely different than the things he's interested in now.

4. If you're not gunning on the most selective schools then there's zero need to stress on taking a million AP classes, volunteering a 1000 hours, or saving the world. DS1 took 1 AP class junior year and all the rest were a mix of honors and regular. He's at a private school that had very few AP classes to begin with and they got rid of them all together this year and created their own "advanced" classes instead of having to follow CollegeBoard's curriculum. He's in 2 of these advanced classes for senior year. He has zero volunteer hours. So far he's heard back from 5 colleges (all acceptances) and has received the top merit aid (because we specifically targeted these schools). For us, there's been little stress in the college application process. Yes, he has friends who have gotten into Ivy league and the most selective schools, but they will all be paying full prices which is 100% not worth it to me for an undergraduate degree.

5. Visit schools early. I forced DS1 to visit schools starting his sophomore year when he had random days off that the colleges didn't. Thank goodness since our big trip to visit Pacific Northwest schools last spring break was canceled due to Covid. Luckily we had already visited 10 schools locally during sophomore and fall of junior year so DS1 already had a pretty good idea of exactly what he wanted. We started off visiting a small liberal arts college, a medium size liberal arts consortium, and a large private research university, in suburban and urban locations his sophomore year. Junior year we expanded on this visiting large public universities, more small colleges, etc. By the time he applied this year he was confident in his college list (mostly small liberal arts colleges with a few larger public universities as financial safeties in case merit aid didn't pan out).

6. Run the Net Price Calculator on every single school that pops into your head or that your child mentions as a possible option. Come up with a realistic budget of what you're willing to pay per year and target schools in that range. No need to apply to schools that come out as double your budget when you run the NPC. The NPC is found on every school's website. The NPC calculator estimates what YOU will be expected to pay based on your specific financial info and your child's GPA and test scores.

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